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Augusta Ciliciae*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 June 2015

Extract

In the year A.D. 451, Nestorianism was formally condemned at the Council of Chalcedon. Amongst the metropolitans and bishops who attended from all over the Empire were representatives of the eight sees of Cilicia Prima, the western part of the province known to the Romans as Cilicia Campestris. One of these bishops was Theodorus of Augusta. Nothing further is known of Theodorus, and it was not until recently that anything more was known of his bishopric. This is not surprising, since Augusta was never one of the great cities of the ancient world, and after the rise of Islam soon sank into obscurity. Indeed, apart from the fact that it was almost certainly one of the cities visited by St. Paul when, according to Acts, “he went through Syria and Cilicia confirming the churches,” its recent discovery at Gübe, about 16 km. north of Adana, is not perhaps of great historical significance.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The British Institute at Ankara 1956

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References

1 Mansi, VII, p. 402.

2 Malalas, , Chronographia, XIVGoogle Scholar, reports this reorganization of Cilicia Pedias as having taken place in the reign of Theodosius the Younger (408–450).

3 Il., VI, 201Google Scholar. The connexion of this area with the period before the Trojan War has been strikingly confirmed by finds of Myc. IIIa or IIIb sherds at Kazanlı. See Gjerstad, E., Rev. Arch. (1934), pp. 155 ffGoogle Scholar. For Mycenaean wares in Cilicia as a whole, see Stubbings, F., Mycenaean Pottery from the Levant, Cambridge (1951), pp. 88–9Google Scholar; also important is Williams, V. Seton, “Cilician Survey,” AS., IV (1954), pp. 134–5Google Scholar.

4 The account is published by Helmuth, Bossert, Th., Belleten, XIV, pp. 664 ff.Google Scholar; also in JKF., I, pp. 292–3Google Scholar.

5 Nat. Hist., V, 93Google Scholar.

6 De Urbibus, s.v. Αὐγούστα.

7 Not. Episc., I, 814Google Scholar. The city is here named Αὐγουοτόπολις.

8 Geogr., V, vii, 6. The reference to Lamotis is difficult to reconcile with the proposed site of Augusta, except in so far as the district is actually to the south of Gübe.

9 For the identification of Flaviopolis with Kadirli, see Gough, M., “Anazarbus,” AS., II (1952), p. 94Google Scholar.

10 Historical Geography of Asia Minor (1890), p. 384Google Scholar. That Ramsay later modified this opinion is shown by his suggestion that the regularization, natural or artificial of the lower courses of the Sarus, might be connected with the question “as to the unknown site of Augusta”. See “Gilicia, Tarsus, and the Great Taurus Pass”, Geographical Journal (October, 1903), p. 6, n. 2Google Scholar.

11 Kleinasiatische Münzen, Band II (1902), Vienna, pp. 436–7Google Scholar. See also BMC. (Lycaonia, Isauria, Cilicia), pp. 44–6, nos. 3, 9, 12; Pls. VII, 11; VIII, 1 and 2.

12 Heberdey, and Wilhelm, , “Reisen in Kilikien,” Wien. Denkschr., XLIV, Abt. 6 (1896), p. 23Google Scholar. There is no considerable site at Toprakkale, and it must in any case have been well inside the boundaries of Cilicia Secunda.

13 Cities of the Eastern Roman Provinces, Oxford (1937), p. 206Google Scholar. For the disputed site of Neronias (Irenopolis), see Seyrig, Henri, “Irenopolis-Neronias-Sepphoris,” Num. Chron., 39–40 (1950), p. 288Google Scholar, n. 9, and Postscript.

14 Zeitschr. f. Numismatik, X, 292Google Scholar. There is, in fact, no real evidence for the occupation of Kozan during the Classical period. See Gough, M.Anazarbus,” AS., II (1952), p. 94Google Scholar. n. 42.

15 Credit for the discovery and later identification of Augusta is, of course, entirely due to the accurate observations made by Mr. Mitchell.

16 The concrete core of a rectangular building on an E.–W. axis (23·2 × 11·6 m.) was discovered at the intersection of the two main colonnaded streets, but it seems unlikely that this was ever a church. It had no apse, and, apparently, no internal divisions.

17 After our departure, Dr. Arkeolog Mahmut Akok, of the University of Ankara, made a series of soundings at Augusta with important results, particularly from the architectural point of view. The publication of his finds, which he promises for the near future, should prove a most valuable addition to our knowledge of Augusta.

18 It must have been about the same size as the theatre at Anazarbus. See M. Gough, op. cit., p. 102.

19 Ibid., p. 104.

20 A small hüyük, Ortatepe, about 5 km. south of Augusta, provides many examples of these wares, and was probably a fairly large settlement on the road from Adana. See Seton-Williams, V., “Cilician Survey,” AS., IV (1954), pp. 140, 166Google Scholar.

21 A random selection produced by villagers represented issues of Claudius Gothicus, Diocletian, Maximian, Licinius, and Constantine.